From Yukon to Johannesburg in My Commander

What’s the best way to get from Yukon, Oklahoma, to Johannesburg, South Africa, a Great Circle distance of about 9,600 nm? For Michael Johnstone, the answer was easy. He first did the reverse route—Johannesburg, which is home for him, to Yukon—by airlines so he could do the return trip his way, in his newly acquired Commander 695B.

Johnstone and ferry pilot Antony Maitland left Legacy Aviation Services in Yukon, where Johnstone had purchased the Commander, on December 13, 2017, and five days later landed at Lanseria International in Johannesburg after logging about 34 flying hours.

“The trip was an amazing experience for me as it was my first flight from the USA through Europe back to South Africa,” Johnstone says. “Temperatures ranged from -40 C to +37 C with large snowfalls in Canada and Greenland, and seeing Mont Blanc in Switzerland, the Mediterranean, the desert in Egypt, the Nile River, Mount Kilimanjaro in Kenya, and Lake Malawi (bordering Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania) were all wonderful sights.”

The trip was the culmination of a long process to progress from the Cessna 402C Johnstone had owned and flown for 10 years to a more capable aircraft to travel throughout Africa with more weather-avoiding performance and comfort.

Johnstone, who in 1984 along with his brother Andrew founded Cranbrook Flavours, a successful sweet and savory food-flavoring manufacturing company based in Johannesburg, has been flying for 21 years. He began by renting various aircraft, then purchased a share of a Cessna 210, which he held for seven years. In 2008 he earned a Multiengine rating and bought the 402C. Two years later he added a Commercial certificate and followed that up with an Instrument rating. Meanwhile, visions of a turboprop began dancing in his mind.

“I fly from my business in Johannesburg to my home in Knysna regularly and it’s quite far, 550 nautical miles,” he explains. “Also, my family is getting bigger with my son recently getting married. I like the idea of flying above the weather, or closer to the tops of it—we often get heavy thunderstorms over here. And, avgas is expensive and not always easy to get in parts of Africa, where Jet A1 fuel is available pretty much everywhere.”

Johnstone was thinking about purchasing either a Beech King Air 200 or Cessna Conquest II when he had a “good chat” with his maintenance provider, Skycare Maintenance (Pty) Ltd.’s Dave Bellinghan at Lanseria International. Bellinghan, who has been through formal Commander technician training, had an unequivocal recommendation: the Model 695 Commander 1000.

“Dave just told me that the Commander is a great aircraft with unbelievable power,” Johnstone recalls. “Dave has always looked after me and I trust him explicitly. He understands me and knows what I like.”

With Bellinghan’s strong endorsement Johnstone began researching Commanders, often consulting with Commander 1000 owner Ken Clarke, who owns Twizza, the South African soft-drink company. Eventually Johnstone settled on the fourth-to-the-last Commander built, a 695B being brokered by Legacy. The B-model’s extra gross weight and fuel capacity compared to earlier Commander models especially appealed to Johnstone.

The flight to South Africa with Maitland was the first real experience Johnstone had in a turboprop, much less a Commander. It was an excellent foundational learning experience, which he followed up by flying with Mark Waberski, an experienced Commander pilot in South Africa. Last February Johnstone came back to the United States to do formal Commander initial training at Simcom in Orlando.

Soon after arriving in South Africa with the Commander Johnstone had the aircraft repainted, which coincided nicely with having new South African registry markings applied. The Commander then went in the shop for a new panel layout to include a Garmin 750, and some interior work including installation of a rear bench seat and new carpeting.

When the updates are completed and Johnstone begins flying the Commander regularly, he will use it for Cranbrook Flavours business. But with his sons now involved in the company Johnstone describes himself as semi-retired, so he has some pleasurable personal flying in mind as well. “I want to travel around Southern Africa so this is the right aircraft for my needs. I often go to Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana, and Namibia so I will use the Commander all the time for this as my wife and I travel regularly to the wildlife parks. I also fly up north to Zambia and the Zambezi River as I’m an avid Tiger fisherman, and that’s rather far. Now it’s obviously going to be a lot quicker.”

 

A FERRY PILOT’S PERSPECTIVE

Following is a personal account of the ferry flight in Johnstone’s 695B written by Antony Maitland, an experienced Commander pilot who for years worked for a British company flying the last Commander built.

…I left Kiripotib [Namibia] on Wednesday 6^th December…by taxi at about 0830 local time (0530 GMT) for Windhoek, Johannesburg, Heathrow, Dallas and Oklahoma, arriving there at 1830 local (0030 GMT) the following day, completely exhausted! However, I achieved what I wanted, which was to get to the airport at Yukon/Page for a working day to see what needed to be done to get ourselves underway as soon as the new owner, Michael Johnstone, arrived to fly back with me. He arrived very late on the Sunday, having been delayed four hours at Heathrow by one inch of snow; an interesting comparison with what the Canadians coped with a couple of days later!

The aircraft concerned was a very late-model Commander 1000B, four serial numbers earlier than the one we had operated for Control Techniques. It had had a complete avionics refit with modern flat-screen Garmin sets, only retaining the original autopilot. We saw just shy of 300 kts in cool air at 27,000 ft.

We eventually set off on the Tuesday December 12 for London, Ontario, and Goose Bay, Labrador. Our preferred 2^nd stop, Sept-Iles, Quebec, at that time was -23 C, 40-kt wind and ¼ mile in snow. Not very attractive. In the event, after takeoff, the pressurization failed to work on climb out, so we returned to Page, feeling thankful that at least we were somewhere it could be fixed. It was a very unusual failure of a pneumatic valve in the door for the seal. By the time it was rectified, it was too late to set off.

We tried again the next day, and this time all went well: we reverted to plan A and night-stopped at Sept-Iles. Even they said the previous day had been a bit rugged. We were most impressed by the efficiency of the ground handlers who had the aircraft in a nice heated hangar before Michael had time to get out.

 

They were equally efficient the following morning. We got in our seats and shut the door. Whereupon the hangar opened, we were refueled, and as we did not need deice we set off for Narsarsuaq, Greenland, where the weather was good, though not as spectacular as I have seen it. I had been hoping to go direct to Wick in Scotland, but looking at the winds, decided to go to Iceland; a major disadvantage of Wick is it closes at 2030 and costs £69 per 15 minutes thereafter. With the 5-hour time change from Canada, it would have needed a very early start to make it anyway. (photo: 11-53-54 (2).jpg – crop as needed)

As it turned out, we had an easy run to Reykjavik, Iceland, with a pretty visual night arrival, followed by a dark departure the next day for a fast run to Fairoaks, an airport in Surrey, England, for fuel and then on to Brindisi in southern Italy. We made up some of the flying time to southern Italy via the London area by pressure-pattern flying round a depression over middle Europe.

Brindisi turned out to be an attractive town, with few people about, not what it might have been in July or August. We left Brindisi the next morning for Luxor. I had not tried this stop, having been through Cairo a number of times, slightly for nostalgia as I was born there. But Cairo is a busy airport with the Middle Eastern overly bureaucratic nightmare, so I decided to make a change. We had a night stop in Luxor. So we did the Temple, and then retired to the hotel for a bottle of wine beside the Nile.

Egypt must have been really suffering; there were no Europeans in the hotel and the airport apron was empty. In hindsight, had I not been fixed on Wilson airport in Nairobi, we could have, with the winds as they were, have done Brindisi, Luxor, Khartoum and Nairobi International in the day.

Khartoum was somewhat surprisingly very efficient, with the cheapest fuel in Africa. The tanker drew up in front of us as we shut down, plans had already been filed by the handlers, and we were ready for takeoff in about 30 minutes.

I have been through Nairobi’s Wilson airfield a number of times and whilst busy and somewhat chaotic, it has had a certain attraction. This time, partly because we had no handling arranged, it was dreadful, with everyone with their hands out and extremely irritating bureaucracy. Both Michael and I lost our tempers! To cap it all, we found ourselves in a dry hotel.

We escaped the following morning for Lilongwe, Malawi, my usual stop on this route. Here we found, as ever, a nice big empty airfield with charming helpful people in the office and efficient refueling. I told them that they made it a joy to stop there. I rather regret not having ever stayed there; it always looks like a lovely green pretty country. Then it was on over Mozambique and Zimbabwe to Lanseria, and back to first-world air traffic.

Having cleared customs and packed the aircraft into Dave Bellingan’s hangar, I went into the city to stay the night at Michael Johnstone’s house. I was off on the late London flight the next day, but before that I had a fascinating hour-and-a-half with Michael’s food chemist at his food flavours company.

The great circle sum of the sectors was 9,689 nm (this compares with a theoretical 8,000-nm direct); the aircraft time was 34.37 hours at an average of 282 kts. I had looked at a Southern route via Brazil. There is a theoretical possibility of flying from an Island off Recife to Monrovia in Liberia, but that is right on the limit of the range, with no prospect of any wind. Somewhat surprisingly, because of the dogleg to Recife, the southern route only saves about 3-400 miles without any real prospect of any wind assistance whereas, even though the winds were not brilliant over the Atlantic, we probably averaged 30 kts tailwind for 20 hours, worth 600 nm.